After All of These Years
by Kitsune Moonstar
Summary: Derek and Stiles' family plot to help them celebrate a special occasion. This is a sequel to Wedding Stiles, The Stuff of Dreams, The Dancing and the Dreaming, For the Love of It All, and My Sun My Moon and All My Stars.


Author's Note: I do not own Teen Wolf or its characters. This is set in an alternate universe where Laura and Derek never returned to Beacon Hills, but Peter became a crazy alpha anyway. This is a sequel to Wedding Stiles, The Stuff of Dreams, The Dancing and the Dreaming, For the Love of It All, and My Sun My Moon and All My Stars.

* * *

**After All of These Years**

Talia giggled as she put the finishing touches on their project. "Did you get them?"

Laura smirked. "I did."

Claudia let out a sigh. "You're sure they'll like it?"

"When have they ever not liked something we made them?" Laura scoffed.

Her twin rolled her eyes. "I seem to recall a very memorable breakfast that ended up mostly in the trash."

"That was different, and it was before you decided to follow in Auntie Erica's footsteps."

Talia took the ribbons from Laura. "They're going to love this. Are we all set for the party?"

Claudia nodded. "Auntie Erica has everything set up. Uncle Scott is going to make sure they get there on time. We got confirmation that everyone is coming, and there's no one who is out of the loop, which means we can tell all of the stories."

"Good. I want this to be a party to remember."

The twins grinned at her.

"There's no doubt of that," Laura assured her.

"Papa and Daddy are going to be tickled pink."

Talia ran her fingers over the album; the three of them had spent the last three months putting it together. There were so many memories inside, starting before her parents had even been a couple.

Her favorite photo though was the picture on the very first page. It showed the five of them together. It had been during a summer vacation and they had been staying at a lighthouse in Washington working as temporary lighthouse keepers for the week. Talia had been fourteen and the twins were seven. It had been an interesting week to say the least. The picture had been from their last day. The entire family was standing on the lighthouse steps. Stiles and Derek were on the top step. The next step down held Talia with her arms wrapped around the twins' shoulders, one on either side of her. They were all grinning.

Beneath the photo, Talia had penned the message: _For our parents. Congratulations on your twentieth wedding anniversary. You've filled the years with love and memories. These are just a few._

"We'd better get a move on," Laura was saying. "We really can't be late."

"Right." Talia tucked the album under her arm. "Let's go."

The three of them arrived at the restaurant with plenty of time to spare. They weren't the first ones there, but there was still plenty of time. Claudia grinned at the restaurant owner.

"Thanks so much for this, Kira."

The older woman grinned at her. "Not a problem. It's sweet that you all are going to such trouble for your folks. It's going to be an awesome party."

The rest of the pack trickled in, and Talia found herself caught up in greeting people. It had been awhile since they had an all pack event. With most of younger generation starting college in the last few years, they had become a little more spread out than they used to be. Talia had moved out of the family house years ago now, but this was Laura and Claudia's first year away at college. Claudia was at the Culinary Institute of America pursuing a career as a chef. Laura was in Minnesota working on a degree in Forestry with plans of becoming a park ranger. Talia herself didn't live in Beacon Hills any more. These days she was working as an artist for a graphic novel company based out of Portland.

Amelie and Tori McCall arrived with their mom. Amelie was finishing up her police academy training while Tori was still in high school. Allison laughed and hugged Talia and the twins.

"How is school going? I'm so glad you could get away for the weekend, Claudia."

Claudia just laughed. "Me too. Luckily, this term I'm mostly just interning, and the chef I work for is pretty laid back about this sort of thing."

Erica laughed from her post behind the bar. "Duff is a great guy. And he has good things to say about you too."

Danny and Isaac were the next to arrive along with Cora and her current boyfriend. Talia and the twins were tentatively in favor of this one. Craig was a paramedic in Sacramento, and he thought that Cora was brilliant. Interestingly enough, he actually had been one of the paramedics who had taken Cora to the hospital when the twins had been born. He was definitely a step up from her last boyfriend. Craig was also a human who'd grown up in a werewolf pack, so they hadn't had to keep him in the dark about everything.

Cora wrapped them all in hugs. "How are my favorite girls?"

Laura grinned. "Talia may have a new boyfriend."

"Oh?"

Talia rolled her eyes. "Evan's just a friend. He's still hung up on his old boyfriend anyway."

"Right, and that's why you to have a standing date to mock movies together every Friday."

Cora just shook her head. "We'll just see how that turns out."

"Talia!"

She was nearly bowled over by a teenage werewolf. Lianne Boyd grinned up at Talia. Talia smiled.

"Hey, you. How's high school?"

"I can't believe I have one more year after this," the teen whined.

Erica just laughed at her daughter, "Where are your dad and your brothers?"

Lianne just huffed. "Dad's parking the car. Raleigh and Malcolm decided to stay with him."

The rest of the Boyd clan arrived with Lydia and Jackson on their heels.

Laura frowned. "Isn't James coming?"

Lydia just smiled. "He's picking up Rhiannon from school. They should be here momentarily. Are we waiting on anyone else?"

"Just Grandda and Grandma and Uncle Chris. They should be on their way," Claudia told her.

The rest of the group had just arrived when Talia's cell phone with off with a message from Scott.

"All right, folks, they're almost here. Everybody get ready."

Laura turned out the lights, and they waited with bated breath. Moments later, the door opened. Talia could hear three sets of feet making their way down the stairs. As soon as they hit the main floor, Laura flipped on the lights.

"Surprise! Happy anniversary!"

Her parents looked suitably shocked. Talia's father hadn't exactly wolfed out, but his eyes were glowing red. It didn't take either of them long to figure out what was going on though. Stiles started laughing.

"I distinctly remember telling people that I wasn't making a big deal of the anniversary."

Laura grinned at him. "And you're not. It's the rest of us who are."

Derek shook his head with a smile. "They are your daughters."

It didn't take long for everyone to get seated around the giant table and for the food to start flowing. Yuki's, Kira's restaurant, was a longtime favorite amongst the pack. Talia couldn't help the smile on her face when she looked around the table.

Laura and James were arguing once again; the rest of the family had a betting pool on when they'd finally start dating. Tori, Lianne, and Rhiannon were discussing cross-country. All three of them were on the high school team, and this year it was looking like they were going to be able to challenge the district champions. Uncle Danny and Auntie Cora were trading stories of weird cases they'd investigated. Danny had just transferred to the San Francisco office of the FBI at the beginning of the year.

Grandma, Isaac, and Craig were all trying to top one another with stupid patient stories. Amelie and Grandda were discussing her police training with Auntie Allison while Claudia was talking cooking with Auntie Erica. Uncle Boyd and Uncle Scott were talking baseball with Raleigh and Malcolm. Jackson and Uncle Chris were discussing something that had to do with business that Talia didn't understand at all.

And her parents were currently leaning into one another, talking softly. There were times when Talia wondered if she would ever find anything close to the love that they shared. Not that they always got along, Talia could remember some rather intense fights between her parents over the years, but it seemed like no matter what happened even if they were in the middle of a horrible fight nothing would stop the two of them from taking care of one another and loving one another. She'd seen them weather a lot together with love, sarcasm, and a lot of stubbornness. It was the sort of relationship she wanted for herself one day.

Her Auntie Lydia smiled at her. "You're looking pretty pleased with yourself."

Talia just shrugged. "The party turned out better than I'd hoped."

"Speaking of which," Lydia smirked, "I believe you have a speech to make."

Talia rose to her feet, tapping her glass with a chopstick to get everyone's attention.

"All right folks, I'm sure you all know why we're here today." Talia grinned at the gathered assembly. "Derek and Stiles have now been married twenty years, and we're here to celebrate with them. In those twenty years, we've had new babies, crazy hunters, car accidents, kitchen disasters, I got to legally drink, both Dad and Papa ended up on Cupcake Wars at different times, grand romantic gestures, fantastic summer vacations, and my parents are still disgustingly romantic at times. I'd say it's been a pretty good twenty years. I know that there are a couple of other people who have some things to say, and we've got presents as well, so I'm going to turn the floor over to Grandda, and you all can go after him."

That prompted laughter all around the table. Grandda just grinned.

"I don't actually have a lot to say. Most of us knew from the start that Stiles and Derek were going to be one of those couples that had a long relationship of fighting and making up. The way they bickered once they got over being shy with one another made that clear. So, I'm not surprised that we're here celebrating their twentieth anniversary. But I am happy to be here doing so." He raised his glass. "So, to Derek and Stiles. Congratulations on twenty years and here's to many more."

Everyone toasted the couple, and Auntie Lydia got to her feet.

"So, I'm going to be honest, until Derek came along, we were all worried that we were going to lose Stiles. I mean, we were all still close, but we did seem to see less and less of him when everyone started pairing off and getting married. Then suddenly he's got this grouchy alpha werewolf following him around a long with a completely adorable four year old who adored Stiles. And they were adorable together. After Stiles engineered so many of our special days, it was good to see him get one of his own." Lydia smirked at the happy couple. "So, here we are twenty years later, and you two are still adorable together. Now, I'm well aware that you two weren't expecting any sort of fuss for your anniversary, but we couldn't help but put a little something together for you. So this is for you from most of us adults."

And with that Lydia handed Stiles a large white envelope. Talia watched as Stiles opened it, and Derek's eyebrows furrowed as they read the papers inside.

"What?"

"Well, you two do keep talking about how you think it would be fun to do a guidebook for Japan, but you keep putting it off due to one thing or another. Now you have a three month trip to Japan. You'll have to find your own lodgings, but your plane tickets and rail pass are taken care of." Lydia told them. "Just remember this time that posting three hundred pictures to Facebook at once is a little bit overwhelming for the rest of us."

Lydia sat back down, and that just left Talia and her sisters to make their presentation. Catching the twins' attention, Talia gestured to them to stand up.

"So, I have to admit that this was all my idea," Talia told her parents. "In part because we hadn't all gathered together to celebrate something in a while, and in part because I know you both were having a bit of the empty nest with the twins away at school. But I also wanted to remind you two of all of the amazing experiences that have happened in the last twenty years. So, Claudia, Laura, and I put this together for you."

Laura offered the album to their parents. "The hardest part was actually choosing which pictures to include. We finally had to set the criterion of which pictures you two looked the most in love in."

"You have no idea how high a bar you two set for relationships for us," Claudia continued. "All three of us want to be as lucky in love you two have been, and even if you haven't had the perfect relationship, it's always been clear that you had one full of love."

"Anyway, we wanted to celebrate your relationship, and despite your demurrals, twenty years is quite a milestone," Talia added. "We're hoping for many more for you two. We love you, and happy anniversary."

Stiles looked a little teary, and Derek looked so proud of them.

"Thank you." Derek looked around the table. "It's amazing of you all to do this for us."

Stiles took Derek's hand in his own. "We really didn't want to make a fuss over the anniversary, but this has been wonderful."

Then Auntie Erica rolled her eyes. "Oh kiss already so we can move on to dessert."

Stiles stuck his tongue out at her as everyone else laughed, but Derek just leaned in and kissed his husband. Talia just settled back into her seat with a smile, still watching her parents be mushy. One day she was going to have that for herself, but until then, it was nice to have proof that a love like that was possible so close to home.


End file.
